Friday roundup: Ardent Hire restructures fleet | Rental expansion | Biodiesel breakthrough - International Rental News

17 October 2024

While previous weeks may have been characterised by expansion and consolidation, the week that was Oct. 10-16, 2024, seemingly followed a pattern of realligment within equipment rental businesses.

For instance UK-based Ardent Hire, which has continued its plans to restructure its fleet.

With that, the company has sold 1,400 of its 2,000 units in the access and earthmoving categories this year alone, with the remaining 600 to be sold by the end of the year.

At the same time, Ardent is increasing the size of its rotating telehandler fleet to over 100 units, along with “a series of renewables categories.” At the time of writing, its telehandler fleet comprises of over 2,400 units.

One company making expansion moves this week was French private equity firm Sagard Midcap, which acquired a majority share of Italian rental business GV3-Venpa.

As part of the deal, the existing management team – led by CEO Emanuela Pege - and the founding Pege family will reinvest “significantly” in the business.

Sagard said it had been working on the Venpa deal for two years and aimed to make it the “undisputed national leader in its sector.”

Staying in Europe, the second edition of European Rental Week kicked off on Monday October 14. Organised by the European Rental Association (ERA), the event is dedicated to the promotion of rental across Europe and is focusing on the theme of “Working in Rental for a Sustainable Future.”

A number of OEMs, rental companies and their employees have taken part in the event, while the ERA hosted a webinar that touched on some of the key challenges facing rental businesses, including sustainability, recruitment and retention and technology.

Meanwhile, a report published by Off-Highway Research - the body that specialises in the research and analysis of the international construction equipment market, found that rental companies purchased almost one-third of construction equipment sold in North America in 2023.

The report said rental companies accounted for 33% of the 333,000 units sold in the earthmoving, material handling and compact equipment range last year, with rental buyers accounting for 79% of material handling equipment—comprising telescopic handlers, mobile cranes and masted rough terrain forklifts.

Rounding up our coverage of news this week, Australia-based rental company Kennards Hire has said it has made a “groundbreaking shift towards providing sustainable options for large-scale infrastructure projects” with the use of four generators with B20 biodiesel.

The generators, which were used on the Sydney Metro - Western Sydney Airport rail project, marks the company’s first use of B20 biodiesel to meet the requirements of principal contractor, CPB Contractors United Infrastructure Joint Venture (CPBUI JV).

The company had previously used B5, which is 5% vegetable oils 95% diesel blend, as opposed to the B20 which uses a 20% recycled cooking oils to 80% diesel fuel blend.

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